83 years since the Apocalypse

WEST HOLLYWOOD–What if Adolf Hitler had just been an actor?

In another version of history, he was all set to make it. David Bowie, in his oft-forgotten national socialist phase, called Der Fuhrer “one of the first rock stars.” Bowie later said he was on a lot of cocaine. Pop historians would say as much of the high command. It’s obvious: Hitler had the look. Not just starting quarterback stuff, but an aesthete presentation straight from Hollywood. Is he good-looking even? It doesn’t matter, because we could not–still cannot–look away.

Euros do not celebrate Labor Day. Perhaps because in the post-historical era, every day is labour day. However, historically speaking early September is a bit of a depressing time in Europe. The date of September 1, 1938, when Hitler and Josef Stalin divided Poland is forever etched in history. This was the beginning of what we now know as World War II.

Or as W.H. Auden wrote in the October 1939 issue of the New Republic: “I sit in one of the dives / on Fifty-second Street / uncertain and afraid / as the clever hopes expire / of a low dishonest decade: / Waves of anger and fear / circulate over the bright / and darkened lands of the earth, / obsessing our private lives.” September 1, 1939. Memento mori.

It’s been 83 years. Danzig was primed for slaughter for many years. The “free city”, in Orwellian style, was sentenced to be captured long before the term “Orwellian”. Joseph Goebbels was a sort of fascist John Lennon. He had been seen to the enthralled pro German crowd at the frontier city in June in clear premeditation for murder.

“Polish circles showed little concern today over the speeches of Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels in Danzig, though he was the first German Cabinet Minister to enunciate German intentions to include Danzig within the frontiers of the Reich,” the New York Times reported.

Indeed, the Polish authorities were briefing their own people that if the Nazis ever did the highly thinkable, it was they, the Poles, who would be in Berlin, in six weeks. Ashraf Ghani would like a word.

The Nazis’ assault, which was helped by the great ideological enemy (the Muscovite comunists), was started by a group that had ten years ago been considered a joke in German politics. The crash of 1929 made Hitler, and the early victories of what was not-to-be the Thousand Year Reich endowed the man with a sheen of invincibility, whereas his earlier life had only been defined by merciless precarity. Both readings are unsound: Hitler the unstoppable; Hitler as “un-person.”

But the men who laid waste to Poland were also these sorts of men, as summarized by the excellent Misha Saul:

The sycophancy, the grotesque physiognomies of leading Nazis, hollow-faced Goebbels with his womanising, Hitler with his sexlessness, boarish Goring in his red velvet robe and slippers. Late night movies in Eagle’s Nest and daytime indulence, with secretaries politely receiving cakes. The delusion, the schitzophrenic [sic] flip flop between historic self-importance and teary-eyed sentimentality about the Volksgemeinschaft. This is all ridiculous and camp.

And Saul writes later of the reality they brought to bear:

My grandfather was in the Red Army…. When he was older he had constant nightmares. The Red Army was his closest to a meal. He left his small Galician village when he was 18 with his younger brother, ahead of the Germans. Those they left behind, including his parents and 11yo brother, didn’t know they’d be rounded up and shot. Their names are commemorated in this tiny corner of the web.

As the hard-left writer Chris Hedges notes, “there is nothing in human nature or human history to support the idea that we are morally advancing as a species or that we will overcome the flaws of human nature.”

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That is quite an aide-memoire, one that should compel us all to take stock not just of the last 83 years, but of the last two-and-a-half. It was an era in history when we kept the species captive under a flimsy excuse and allowed the deformation of the history of the public square.

We have witnessed, very painfully, how few people would stand up against the terrible and sudden. We should all try to disprove Hedges’s assertions. A fair appraisal can be a great start. Talent can live and thrive in strangeness, sordidness, and blackheartedness. Humor can also cohabitate well with darkheartedness. And mediocrity can often be paired with wit.

If not God then human creativity can be the fountain of goodness and evil. Or as the collaborationist–also the superlative twentieth century French novelist–Celine attested: “All the rest is disappointment and fatigue. The journey we take is completely imaginary. This is the strength …. Anyone can achieve as much. All you have to do is close your eyes. You can find it on the opposite side of life .”